Cannes Countdown: The Competition (updated)

Being a subjective, not entirely well-informed, and hopefully not pre-judging bunch of observations on the pictures in competition at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival, May 14-25...

'Three Monkeys,' directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

"I figured it would appeal to you...formalists," a friend said with only mild sarcasm when explaining why he was colder than the rest of his dinner companions after Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates screened in Cannes back in 2006. Well, yes and no. Turkish actor/director Ceylan's work has been compared to that of Antonioni and Tarkovsky, but while I don't think he ever reaches those filmmakers' highs, his perspective on romantic anomie has some new flavors that are well worth sampling. Ceylan's also got a pleasingly mordant sense of humor, on display in a very messed-up adulterous sex scene at Climates' center. The title's three monkeys, as can be inferred from the film's minimal website, are the ones not sensing any evil. As this is Ceylan's followup to Climates, us formalists are very much looking forward to it.

'The Silence of Lorna,' directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Ho-hum, another three-year interval, another Dardennes Brothers film at Cannes. These guys are like The Fall in the mid-'80s, only a little slower. I kid. I always look forward to a new film from the Belgian duo, who adapt the cinematographic lessons of Bresson to a more overtly socially-conscious model than the late master worked in, to increasingly stunning results—I thought their 2005 L'Enfant was their best ever. Not much is known about this picture, but it does star L'Enfant's great Jeremie Renier, who was very funny (and all but unrecognizable) in Martin McDonagh's In Brugesearlier this year.

'A Christmas Story,' directed by Arnaud Desplechin

I think we've gotten all the Bob-Clark-film-remake jokes out of our system...

Alternately antically comic and sourly tragic, nail-bitingly gripping and irritatingly tedious, and always emotionally galvanic, the films of Arnaud Desplechin are experiences like no other.
This one features Mathieu Amalric and Catherine Deneuve, who were in his last picture, the incredible, exhausting Kings and Queen; Deneuve's daughter Chiarra Mastroianni is also in it. Experience of Desplechin's running times suggests that this could be the competition's second-longest film, with Soderbergh's two-part Che pic coming in first...

'Changeling,' directed by Clint Eastwood

Eastwood. Jolie. Straczynski.

That is correct. The fanboy-beloved creator of Babylon 5 wrote the script for this fact-based 1920's-set mystery/melodrama. Don't snicker. The guy's a good writer. Nice guy, too—I interviewed him for TV Guide once.

'Adoration,' directed by Atom Egoyan

Rarely has a director gone quite so far wrong as Egoyan did in his last fiction feature (and Cannes entry) Where the Truth Lies, which was equally hobbled as a philosophical examination and a trashy showbiz scandal tale. The new pic is, according to one report, an examination of "how kids redefine themselves through the internet," which very idea I imagine will make many people's heads explode. But Egoyan's done great work with young casts and characters before. So as always, it's "who knows" time.

'Waltz With Bashir,' directed by Ari Folman

An animated film from the creator of the Israeli television series upon which HBO's In Treatment is based.

'The Frontier of Dawn,' directed by Philippe Garrel

The iconoclastic French director, whose critical profile in the States was raised quite a bit a couple years back with his epic May '68 evocation Regular Lovers, makes it into the Cannes competition for the first time in almost 40 years of moviemaking. I've been intrigued by Garrel ever since I was a morbid teen and saw the stills from the movies he made starring his one-time lover Nico on the covers of various Nico albums. Catching up with his cinematic output, which frequently features character contemplating or committing suicide, did not disappoint either the morbid teen or the adult critic. So I'm very much looking forward to this picture, starring Garrel's ultry-sultry son Louis and apparently featuring a suicide who comes back as a ghost.

'Gomorra,' directed by Matteo Garrone

The director of the creepy 2002 The Embalmer, which had a Mafia sub-theme, here adapts a well-regarded non-fiction book on the mob in Naples—the publication of which resulted in death threats to its author. Italian singing star Maria Nazionale is among the cast members.

'24 City,' directed by Jia Zhangke

I was a little let down by Jia' last film Useless, which was, when all was said and done, a more-conscious-than-average infomercial for a fashion designer. But that's the only time I've been disappointed by the Chinese director of such stunners as The World and Still Life, and this latest project, which is set in the '50s and '70s, sounds ambitious, intriguing.

'Synecdoche, New York,' directed by Charlie Kaufman

Kaufman's directorial debut, and the first movie to have his name on it since 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I am so there. I am even more there once I am completely confident as to the pronunciation of "Synecdoche."

'My Magic,' directed by Eric Khoo

I'm not that up on Singaporean filmmaker Khoo, whose output is largely comprised of tales of extremely dysfunctional characters. Here, a real-life fire eater will play an alcoholic magician trying to connect with his teenage son.

'The Woman Without A Head,' directed by Lucrecia Martel

Martel, whose prior features are The Holy Girl and La Cienega, is one of the leading lights of the new Argentine cinema. Kent Jones: "It's hard to think of something, anything, that Martel doesn't do well, either expressively or organizationally." Already the Cannes oddsmakers (I don't have a sports book number for the fest yet) are fingering this and the Ceylan for the Palme d'Or.

'Serbis,' directed by Brillante Mendoza

Apparently only the third film from the Phillippines to compete in Cannes. It's the story of a family that runs what we here in the States call "an escort service" out of an abandoned movie theater. Mendoza' 2005 The Masseur made waves on the festival circuit, but his work hasn't gotten much meaningful U.S. exposure.

'Delta,' directed by Kornel Mundruczo

Hungarian director Mundruzco is known as a disciple of Bela Tarr, so, no, in case you were wondering, this won't be a film about the Mississippi delta. The Danube is the setting, the story is of a brother and sister building a life together.

'Linha de Passe,' directed by Daniela Thomas and Walter Salles

After a less-than-satisfying foray into American moviemaking with Dark Water, Brazilian director Salles teams with Thomas and returns to the hardscrabble themes and lives of his moving 1998 film Central Station, and why not.

'Che,' directed by Steven Soderbergh

We've already gotten into this a bit on a comments thread of a previous Cannes post. The thing is sure to start a lot of arguments, that's for sure...

'Il Divo,' directed by Paolo Sorrentino

Watching L'Amico di Famiglia, Sorrentino's last film, at Cannes in 2006, was one of the most excruciatingly painful experiences I have ever had in a movie theater. How to describe? The picture was kind of like a Coen Brothers movie, only in a K-hole, and that's the best I con do. Apologies to those of you without drug experience. All I can tell you is that what I intend to evoke is really, really, really bad. So I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to this, which is not about Simon Cowell's operatic singing troupe. Actually, that's a good thing. The film is apparently a treatment of the life of Italian politician Giulio Andreotti, who's apparently been mixed up in, um, all kinds of stuff. So as the representative of the Glass Half Full party, I've gotta note that it sounds interesting...

'Leonera,' directed by Pablo Trapero

I don't know much about Argentinean director Trapero, but I am a fan of this pic's leading lady, Stinky Toys co-founder Elli Medeiros, who as a singer has collaborated with my friend Gary Lucas, as a designer concocted that jeweled-snake thingie that Rebecca Rojmin steals off Rie Rasmussen in De Palma's Femme Fatale and is just a tres cool all around renaissance woman. So that's a big selling point for me.

'The Palermo Shooting,' directed by Wim Wenders

As many of you know, one of my cinephilic adages is "Never count an auteur out," so while others raise eyebrows at the casting of Dennis Hopper opposite Milla Jovovich in this, I'm just gonna trust Wenders. Yes, I abhored the Sam Shepard collab Don't Come Knocking, but thought Wenders' almost contemporaneous Land of Plenty was underrated. And hey kids—doncha remember how awesome Hopper was in a little Wenders picture called The American Friend. Also, I see Patti Smith and Lou Reed play themselves in this. Two names you always think of when you're making a movie in Palermo...

UPDATE: Two pictures were added to the competition since this posted: Between the Walls, by the accomplished, provocative French director Laurent Cantet, whose recent films Heading South and Time Out have won him a pretty strong following among U.S. cinephiles, and American auteur James Gray's new Two Lovers, starring Joaquin Phoenix (who seems to have become Gray's DeNiro), Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw. Gray's We Own The Night played last years festival, and proved pretty divisive. As much as I admired Little Odessa and particularly The Yards, I thought Gray kind of went off the rails with this one. But I'm glad to see a new film from him arriving in such quick succession (there was an almost seven-year lull between The Yards and Night, which only exacerbated my disappointment with the latter film), and I'm rooting for it.

Comments

[Aaron Aradillas]

And here I thought Eastwood's Changeling was a remake of the Peter Medak-directed The Changeling.

Anyone remember that one? It's a fine ghost story with a rare understated performance from George C. Scott, post-Patton.

I vividly remember there being quite a few scenes of characters leaving a room and the camera holding on an empty composition. I remember telling my Dad that these shots were "very Ozu-ish." Seeing as I was only 14 at the time (and I had not seen any Ozu), you could label a bit of a smart ass.

Question: Which film will Sean Penn lead his fellow jurors in giving the top prize to? Will he respond to the politics of Che? Or, will he he respond to the "deliberate pace" approach in almost every Wenders movie? Or, will he display loyalty to the man who got him an Oscar? Or, he could take the easy way out and go with the Dardenes. Five will get you ten that Manohla Dargis hails it the first masterpiece by the Dardenes since their last one.

[colinr]

And of course Milla Jovovich was in that underrated Wenders masterpiece The Million Dollar Hotel! (Just kidding!...or am I?)

Glad to see Lucrecia Martel's latest in competition (along with Pablo Trapero's new film) - I keep remembering back with sadness to a 2005 South Bank Show television special on the 'Latin American New Wave' which featured Martel along with Fabian Belinsky and Juan Pablo Rebella as emerging talents and within a year the latter had passed away.

[Dan]

Aaron, I think "The Changeling" is superb and that Medak as a director is a little unappreciated. "The Ruling Class", anyone?

[bill]

Glenn - Just in case you were serious, it's "sin-ek-duh-key".

[bill]

Oh, and a "synecdoche" is a metaphor wherein a part stands in for the whole, as in "a herd of cattle".

If everyone already knows this, I apologize for being a smarty-pants. I just sometimes like to prove that I know things.

[Aaron Aradillas]

Oh, wait, is Eastwood's Changeling an adaptation of the opening track to The Doors' L.A. Woman album?

"You're gonna se me CHANGE!/see me CHANGE!"

[andreas kristiansen, oslo, norway]

Where the Truth Lies was a great movie! Don't slam that one.

[Glenn Kenny]

I was serious, Bill. I can throw the verbiage around like crazy in print but when speaking I get a weird pronunciation glitch every now and again. Dates back to some childhood trauma, I'm told. (If only I could remember, and it would go away, just like in "Marnie"...)

[Aaron Aradillas]

Yes, Where the Truth Lies is an underrated showbiz story.

It is a textbook example of the sex scenes are vital for the rest of the movie to work.

[addison dewitt]

Oh c'mon. Where The Truth Lies just stank. If you're gonna do the inside scoop on Martin-Lewis, the last thing you want is earnestness. You want fun. Why? Because it doesn't matter, that's why.

[bill]

And the book it's based on was LOADS of fun. I really don't know what Egoyan was thinking.

Also, I saw the R-rated version of the film. The only sex scene that matters to the plot is the threeway, and even if snips were made to that scene (and having seen the unrated version since, I don't believe there were), you absolutely get the point. I'm no fan of the MPAA, but I also don't understand the uproar. The cuts I noticed were an inconsequential shot of Bacon and Firth with a couple of hookers, and one graphically suggestive (if there can be such a thing) shot from the lesbian scene.